October 29, 2012

The Cora Indians, or Na'ayarij how they call
themselves, is a small indigenous group of about 20,000 people that live in the
rugged mountain and deep canyon country of Sierra del Nayar in the Mexican
state of Nayarit. Since the early 16th century, the Coras have for decades
fearlessly resisted several attempts at conquest and religious conversion by
Spanish conquistadors. In 1722, the Cora military leader was captured and
executed and Spaniards destroyed all Cora temples. Jesuits and then Franciscans
established their missions in the Cora territory and began converting the
Indians to Catholicism. The long process of evangelization of the Coras has,
among other things, given rise to a complex syncretic ritual called “La Judea”,
the weeklong Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebration that merges indigenous
beliefs, shamanism and animism with Christianity.

Each year during the Holy Week all the Cora villages
are taken over by hundreds of wildly running men, who have decorated themselves
firstly with ashes and later with shiny colors. Painted all over their
semi-naked bodies, wearing horned masks and holding wooden swords, these Judios
(literally, Jews) or Borrados (“erased ones”) represent night demons or the
evil itself. Reflecting the never-ending cosmic struggle, wild-eyed Judios run
around in groups, they dance, often comically with lots of sexual imagery, they
fight with wooden sabres in ritual duels and primarily, they seek Jesus Christ
to capture him. During this phase of celebration, “evil” endangers cosmic
harmony. On the Good Friday, after several attempts “Jews” finally find a
little boy (Cristo Niño), an effigy of Jesus Christ, and they kill him
symbolically. The next day, on Holy Saturday, the situation changes. Jesus
Christ resurrects and painted demons return metaphorically to the river,
washing off their colors in its water. The balance of the cosmos is restored
and peace comes back to the Cora towns.

According to the various anthropology investigations,
La Judea, with all its intricate symbols, seems to be originally linked to the
agricultural cycle, together with the rain season arrival and the regeneration
of life. Hence the fertility symbols, animal images and reproduction acts are
featured throughout the spectacle, yet everything is mixed with elements of the
Roman Catholic dogma. All Judios, participating in La Judea, run around for a
couple of days, with almost no clothes and virtually without a break, and
moreover, they are not allowed to eat and drink the whole day until the sunset.
Due to those characteristics, it is supposed that the ancient Cora warrior
initiation rituals were also incorporated into the Holy week celebration.

La Judea, the Cora Holy week celebration, remains the
most truthful expression of the Coras' culture, religiosity and identity.
Although this annual festival unites all the Coras (children, teenagers, adults
and elders) into a spectacular commemoration of their roots, forming the basic
element of community cohesion, many young people leave and never come back. The
drug cultivation and trafficking, propably the most growing industry in Mexico
within the last decades, followed by violence, have reached the world of Cora
and have dramatically changed their traditional society.

October 26, 2012

I go back now, to Pennsylvania, and on one of the
walls of the house in which my parents now live there hangs a photograph of
myself as a boy. I am smiling and staring with clear eyes at something in the
corner of the room. I stand before that photograph, and am disappointed to
receive no flicker, not the shadow of a flicker, of approval, of gratitude. The
boy continues to smile at the corner of the room, beyond me. That boy is not a
ghost to me, he is real to me; it is I who am a ghost to him. - John Updike

October 24, 2012

Coatlicue,
also known as Teteoinan (also
transcribed Teteo Inan), "The Mother of Gods", is the Aztec goddess who gave birth
to the moon, stars, and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun
and war. She is also known as Toci (Tocî, "our grandmother") and Cihuacoatl ("the
lady of the serpent"), the patron of women who die in childbirth.

The
word Coatlicue is Nahuatl for "the
one with the skirt of serpents". The word for serpant
is coātl and the word for skirt is cuēitl. She is referred to
variously by the epithets "Mother
Goddess of the Earth who gives birth to all celestial things",
"Goddess of Fire and
Fertility", "Goddess of Life, Death and Rebirth", and "Mother of the
Southern Stars."

She
is represented as a woman wearing a skirt of writhing snakes and a necklace made of human
hearts, hands, and skulls. Her feet and hands are adorned with claws and her
breasts are depicted as hanging flaccid from pregnancy. Her face is formed
by two facing serpents (after her head was cut off and the blood spurt forth from her
neck in the form of two gigantic serpents), referring to the myth that she
was sacrificed during the beginning of the present creation.

Most
Aztec artistic representations of this goddess emphasize her deadly side,
because Earth, as well as loving mother, is the insatiable monster that
consumes everything that lives. She represents the devouring mother, in whom
both the womb and the grave exist.

According
to Aztec legend, she was once magically impregnated by a ball of feathers that fell on
her while she was sweeping a temple, and subsequently gave birth to the
gods Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl. Her daughter Coyolxauhqui then rallied
Coatlicue's four hundred other children together and goaded them into attacking
and decapitating their mother. The instant she was killed, the god Huitzilopochtli suddenly
emerged from her womb fully grown and armed for battle. He killed many of his
brothers and sisters, including Coyolxauhqui, whose head he cut off and threw
into the sky to become the moon. In one variation on this legend, Huitzilopochtli
himself is the child conceived in the ball-of-feathers incident and is born
just in time to save his mother from harm.
[Wiki]

Enigma

"Silent
Warrior"

Long ago, for many
years
White men came in the name of GOD
They took their land, they took their lives
A new age has just begun
They lost their GODS, they lost their smile
they cried for help for the last time.
Liberty was turning into chains
But all the white men said
That's the cross of changes
In the name of GOD - The fight for gold
These were the changes.
Tell me - is it right - In the name of GOD
These kind of changes ?
They tried to fight for liberty
Without a chance in hell, they gave up.
White men won in the name of GOD
With the cross as alibi
There's no GOD who ever tried
To change the world in this way.
For the ones who abuse His name
There'll be no chance to escape
On judgement day
In the name of GOD - The fight for gold
These were the changes.
Tell me - Is it right - In the name of GOD
These kind of changes ?
Tell me why, tell me why, tell why
The white men said:
That's the cross of changes ?
Tell me why, tell me why, tell why,
In the name of GOD
These kind of changes.

music+image

Thanks for visiting, please be sure that I read each and every one of your kind comments, I appreciate them all. Stay tuned.

Flashback

Thanks!

Atmosphères

Sketches of Cities

The World in B and W

Geo

Please do not change this code for a perfect fonctionality of your counter
visual arts

Photo Carraol Images of Mexico City.A delightful photo blog that ensnares the beauty of urban life in Mexico City in a varied and visually arresting style. Simply stunning work of a consistently high quality.